What is the mood of legal counsel as it relates to legal risk management?

Synopsis Part 1: Data mapping helps you answer "How long do I have to keep my data, really?"
Synopsis Part 2: Mary Mack talks legal, technology and risk management through education
Synopsis Part 3: What is the mood of legal counsel as it relates to legal risk management?

Electronic data discovery interview -  Mary Mack, Corporate Technology Counsel, Fios, Inc, (Part 3 of 3)

As Corporate Technology Counsel for Fios, she has more than 20 years experience delivering enterprise-wide electronic discovery, managed services and software projects with legal and IT departments in publicly held companies. Mary is a hands-on strategic advisor to counsel for some of the largest products liability class actions, government investigations and intellectual property disputes. Clients include the largest law firms, pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies in the world.

A member of the Illinois Bar, ACCA and the ABA's Section on Litigation, Mary received her J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law (1982) and a B.A. from LeMoyne College in Syracuse, NY. She holds certifications in Computer Forensics and Computer Telephony. (more)

By Joshua Konkle writing for DCIGInc.com
www.dciginc.com

Joshua Konkle: In your work with corporate legal counsel how do you help them synchronize their policies and their IT, what is the mood of legal counsel out there?

Mary Mack: The mood is "cranky."  For good reason - the risk of exposure (personally and for the organization) and costs are higher than ever. It's been a geometric rise in risk and cost. Many professionals practicing law were lulled into higher costs because they were in the midst of reactive litigation, dealing with multiple cases and hundreds of custodians. There wasn't an opportunity to evaluate the budgets or process, except at the beginning of a new fiscal year.

Unlike electronic data, physical case evidence exerted boundaries on the legal budget based on one's tolerance for going through the boxes of paper and other paper-based evidence. With today's electronically stored information (ESI), cost provisioning has become unpredictable. It has changed because a single, four-gigabyte thumb drive can have 240,000 document pages on it. Counsel doesn't really know how many of these documents will be relevant until the review cycle, unless there is an early case assessment done.

Exacerbating the ESI situation is the phobia of technology by many practicing lawyers with undergraduate degrees like mine in Classical Languages. This fear, combined with growing document collections and skyrocketing e-discovery costs, makes "cranky" is the best word to describe counsel's mood in the market today.

If you would like to communicate with Mary directly, she can be reached at info(at)fiosinc.com or by calling Fios at 1 877 700 3467.

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